Cursed
by Cmdr's Monkey
Summary: Prompt response for Witching Hour. Hector Barbossa finds himself living his worse nightmare in the dreamscape, a punishment for a crime he committed against a goddess. Set after the Brethren Court adjourne in AWE. Hector Barbossa and Tia Dalma.


**Disclaimer: Own nothin...**

**A/N: This was in response to the "Witching Hour" prompt on LJs pirategasm.**

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**Cursed**

The dark and bleak cavern walls glistened with the shine of a thousand gold coins and trinkets and flickered with dancing shadows caused by the dozen torch lit flames held and carried by a dozen and more filthy, bedraggled men as they stood on stone and in knee deep water, chanting and howling a primal beat in anticipation to what was occurring at the top of the highest mound of treasure. The man who stood at the top, holding the wrist of a frightened woman, held onto a serrated bone dagger as he spoke to the unkempt men below.

"Done by blood, by blood undone!" Barbossa recited the all too familiar words and turned to face the maroon-dress clad girl. He pulled the gold medallion from around her neck and placed it into the palm of her hand before slicing a thin line into the soft flesh.

"That's it?" she incredulously asked him.

He grinned devilishly at her as he replied, "Waste not", before forcing her to drop the coin into the chest to join the rest of the 882 pieces of cursed gold. He let go of her hand and took a step back, closing his eyes in anticipation of feeling the cold air of the cave wisp past his face or the feel of his muslin shirt against skin. But like the thousands of times before since having lived this event, he knew he would feel nothing except his hope being undone by a child who had lied to him about her name.

And like a thousand times before since his resurrection, he knew he was dreaming a memory that would end with his death at the hands of Jack Sparrow and yet no matter how hard he tried to control that memory, he could never have it end the way he wanted it. And like a thousand times before he let the memory flow through its course like a river idling its way down a familiar land, knowing that it was better to let it end sooner rather than prolong it by fighting it.

He opened his eyes once again, having felt nothing different, having felt no change in the air or upon his body. Like in the past, he had wondered if it had worked and if not what had gone wrong. They had done everything the voodoo priestess had told them to do. They had collected all the coins and returned them to the stone chest and gave their blood as sacrifice for their greed. His men were just as curious and wondered how they could tell. He had rolled his eyes at them and drew his flintlock and placed a round in Pintel's chest.

When the man had not fallen over into Death's arms, Barbossa narrowed his eyes and stared at the blood-covered blade in curiosity. He knew they had done everything right, the priestess would never have deceived him. She had not in the past and he doubted she would now. That only left one other person who could have deceived them all and that person he turned to face now.

"You, maid! Your father, what is his name?" he demanded of her and when she did not immediately answer he grabbed her by the arms and shook her. "Was your father William Turner?"

"No," she had sneered coldly back at him. He had demanded her to tell him where the real child was and her silence had infuriated him. In his anger he struck out at her and sent her sprawling to the bottom of the mound, along with the gold medallion before he turned back to face his crew whom he knew by now were just as angry as he was, if not more so.

But his anger was quickly curbed by surprise and Barbossa found himself taking an uncertain step back from what he saw before him. He knew something was not right, he knew that the memory had ceased to be a memory and became something more the moment he set his eyes before him at what should have been his ghastly crew were now an equal in number of tanned and tattooed natives, dressed in furs and leather, loincloth hides and feathers, welding spears and staffs and wicked blades. In the place of his officers were four larger warriors each of them dressed differently from the warriors that stood behind them and differently from each other and all wore headdresses, symbolizing them as the leaders of these warriors.

One wore a black mask over his eyes, a green-feathered headdress adorning his skull and his entire body was painted with red and white stripes. He wore furs and feathers for clothing and held onto a bow that had matching arrows in a quiver on his back. The one to his left reminded him vaguely of the curse for the man appeared to be a blood-spattered skeleton with an owl-feathered and paper banner headdress. A necklace of human eyeballs hung from around his neck and a black spider crawling out from between a pair of ribs drew Barbossa's gaze away and he realized that these were not men at all, but the heathen gods that had cursed him.

Next to the living skeleton stood a man dressed in black jaguar fur, his headdress that of a jaguar's head with its yellow teeth tipped with dripping blood. His face was painted with black and yellow stripes and on his chest was an obsidian mirror that gave off the illusion of swirling smoke. A snake curled around one of his feet and legs, flicking its tongue outward to taste the misty, cold air of the cavern. In his hand was a wooden staff decorated with feathers and intricate carvings and capped with an animal's skull.

The last one made Barbossa's stomach turn upon setting his eyes upon him. Over the golden-like body, the creature wore a human's skin recently flayed, the hands hanging down from his arms like open sleeve cuffs. The face of the previous owner was stretched over the god's own and pinned in place by a thin bone needle that pierced through his nose. Atop his head was a pointed headdress, painted in different, bright colors. In his hand and that which probably had done the horrific deed was a bloody knife very similar to the one that which Barbossa currently held him self.

Self-consciously he dropped the bone dagger and drew his own sword and held it ready in front of him to kill any of the warriors and their heathen gods should they try and harm him. For a brief moment he let his gaze break away from them to glance over his shoulder to girl he had flung from the mound and received another shock of his life. Rather than the girl he was expecting to see, Tia Dalma stood in her place staring back at him with an almost sad and pitying expression on her beautiful and tattooed face.

"Miss Dalma..." he said to her, the fear he was feeling and trying to suppress, rising in his voice as he spoke. He glanced between her and the Aztecs that stood, poised at the base of the treasure-covered mound before meeting her black gaze again. "What is goin' on?"

"Dey curse be upon ye again, Hecta Barbossa," she replied, stepping up to him and pressing her body against his. Her ink-stained hands traced along his bearded jaw before pressing flat against his chest and coursing its way down as she walked around him seductively. "Yer greed be insatiable an' dem be here tae collec' dat which ye owe."

"Dat which be done by greed, by greed undone must be." She stepped away from him, her hand leaving his bearded chin as she walked away. Once Tia Dalma had left his side, the jaguar-clad deity raised his decorated staff and slammed the end of it onto the ground twice, the pounding echo reverberating through the cavern before it was drowned out by the battle cries and roars of the several dozen Aztec warriors behind them.

Hector Barbossa raised his sword and drew his pistol as the Aztec warriors rushed at him all at once. He pulled the trigger of the weapon and stared at it dumbly when the hammer failed to ignite the gunpowder inside until he realized he had already spent the shot on Pintel. Cursing his luck, he tossed the useless weapon at the nearest warrior, hitting him in the head and causing him to fall backwards into two of his brethren, sending both himself and them back down the mound, arms and legs flaying about in the air.

Barbossa growled in triumph at the sight and whirled around with his sword to parry a thrusting spear from his side. He knocked the warrior's weapon aside and quickly came forward with a riposte, a quick thrust of his own that speared the warrior through the gut and sending him crumbling to the gold-strewn floor. As quickly as Barbossa had killed the warrior, he was replaced with two more spear brandishing natives. He swatted a lunge aside and retreated around and behind the stone chest, grabbing several of the carved coins and throwing them into the crazed faces of his attackers. The coins bounced off of them and they pressed forward completely unfazed by his attempted distraction.

Out of the corner of his eye, two more warriors reached the top of the mound and tried to flank him but he saw what they were doing and had twisted his body around to avoid the thrust of a spear. Using the momentum from the dodge, he completed the turn and ran down the backside of the hill and into the almost, chest deep pool of water. A spear flew past his shoulder and disappeared into the black depths as he made his way across toward the stone surface. He heard several cries and splashes of water as warriors jumped in after him, swimming quickly with long and powerful strokes.

He turned around with the speed of a lethargic sloth to confront the warriors that had followed after him. Time seemed to have slowed as he tried to fend off the natives; slashing his sword across the throat of one and staining the water with crimson red, pummeling another across the temple with the hilt of his blade and trying to wrestle a third beneath the surface to drown him before he could finally break away and scramble back to the stone surface.

As soon as his feet were firmly on solid ground again, he ran as fast as his legs could take him. He heard the twang of a bow being plucked and felt the searing pain of an arrowhead plunging into his thigh. He howled out in pain as he stumbled forward and landed on a slight rise leading to higher parts of the cavern. Glancing back at his wound, Barbossa grabbed the offending weapon and pulled it out, grimacing as a new wave of pain climbed up his leg and cursing at his own stupidity for doing it.

He had no time to deal with the flowing blood seeping out of his injury, for four warriors were charging after him and a second arrowhead plunged into a wooden chest next to his head. He glanced in the direction where it came from and saw an archer standing on another mound not too far from where the stone chest lay. He was quickly plucking the bow for another arrow and Barbossa paid heed to getting out of his sight as quickly as possible before a second arrow could drill a new hole into his body.

Scrambling to his feet again and ignoring the pain in his thigh, he limped his way up the rising floor and ducked under one of the arches as the third arrow barely missed him by inches. He could not stay there as the four warriors chasing him caught up and forced him to defend himself again. One warrior attacked at his injured leg with his spear, welding it like a double-headed club and smacked it into his leg. Barbossa went down onto his back and rolled to the side as the spearhead came smashing down only to crack on the floor underneath. As he rolled over he grabbed a golden candelabrum and swung back, hitting the warrior across the side of his head and sending him plunging over the side and into the water.

"Ha! Take that ye scurvy cur!" he cackled as he attempted to get back to his feet.

But the three other warriors were already on top of him and no matter how hard he tried to wrestle them off of him, they held onto him fast and quickly disarmed him of both of his weapons. Barbossa did not stop struggling in their grip even as they hauled him back to his feet and dragged him back down to the main floor of the cavern. His desperate thrashing and growling was put to an end with a well-placed blow to the head from another warrior behind him, turning the orange-glowing cavern to a cold and unfeeling darkness.

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He awoke to the sounds of strange music and laughter, the smells of cooked and spiced foods and the sweat of the scorching heat and humidity. For a moment he thought he had awoken from his dream to find himself back at Shipwreck Cove, but instead he found himself imprisoned in a bone cage and for a fleeting second he believed he was a prisoner of the Pelegostos cannibals Gibbs had spoken of during one of his retellings of Jack's adventures to Elizabeth. But he quickly remembered what had happened that could have landed him where he was.

Where he was exactly he was unsure of. He suspected he was in one of the Aztec cities, the bloodstained step-pyramid looming in the distance left little doubt about that. What he could not understand is how he got there or how long it took the Aztecs to bring him to the mainland from the Caribbean isles.

_Dreams never explain things right,_ he warily thought as he stood up and grabbed two of the bone bars for support while gazing out at his surroundings. The source of the music and laughter quickly became apparent to him as he watched a bizarre festival occur all around him. Men, women and children of all shapes and sizes and ages were dancing about, watching and eating as strange displays of aerobatics and illusions were performed in the dirt streets between huts and stone buildings. He saw men dressed as jaguars and birds, chasing laughing children and women. A display of a large, winged snake was traveling through a parting crowd and was followed by a long line of proud warriors wearing what appeared to be their best skins and feathered capes and headdresses. Behind them were several roped and unkempt prisoners adorned only in loincloths, as a less dressed warrior was leading them and guarded by several more.

Barbossa glanced down at his own attire and sighed in relief to see that he had only been stripped down to his breeches and shirt. His jacket and waistcoat were missing, along with his belts, boots and his favorite hat. He also noticed that where his skin was exposed he was covered in tattoos of designs he did not understand the meanings too except one which looked quite disturbing. He drew his gaze away from it to look out at the revelers again and wondered what was going to happen to him.

To answer his unspoken inquiry, his bone cage was opened and two warriors waited for him to step out. Instead, he backed away and then suddenly jumped forward in surprise when he felt the tip of a spear press against his back. He looked behind him to see another warrior poking at him, urging him forward. Wishing not to be speared, he did as he was told and stepped out of the bone cage and into the waiting grip of his two guards. They wrapped a rope around his neck like a leash and bound his wrists together with leather strips before leading him along through the festival.

"I don't suppose ye be willin' to tell me what ye goin' to do to me?" he asked of his escorts and they said nothing as they led him through the crowd and toward the stone, step-pyramid temple. Barbossa gazed up at the top of the temple as they approached and he had to shield his eyes from the blazing sun that bore down on them all in its heated and bright glory. He could see that there were people at the top, one of them was ornately dressed in bright feathers and paint and a colorful stone mask and he was busy shouting to the crowd below. Something he had said made the onlookers roar in agreement or celebration or some reason had he known what the native had said. The man did something that was laid across a stone slab before raising one of his hands with an object in it, which also caused the crowd roar again at his next words before said object disappeared and was burned in a puff of white smoke.

Whatever was happening up there caused Barbossa's stomach to tighten and the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up straight. He did not like the sounds the natives were making each time the man up there spoke to them and had no wish to find out what was happening either. But whichever gods had cursed him, had also wanted him to discover what was going on. As soon as the object had been burned, two more masked and feathered men grabbed the thing that was on the slab and tossed it down the front steps. It took only a second for Barbossa to realize that it was a headless person and what he had mistaken to be red paint on the steps were actually bloodstains.

The old pirate captain swallowed hard at the sight before him and grimaced as the man's head soon followed his body. His blue eyes immediately began to search for a way to escape from his captures, wishing desperately to avoid the same fate as the other prisoner. But even if he could escape, where would he go? He had no idea where exactly he was and even if he were to get to the sea, he had no ship to sail away upon. And what of the Spanish Conquistadors and the cities they had founded all through out this land? Should they not be among these savages and have put a stop to what they were doing?

He listened to the buzz of conversation among the natives in the hope to recognize one of them speaking in Spanish, but his hope of getting out of this were crushed upon his arrival at the base of the pyramid and that he had not heard and single utterance of Spanish. When it came time for him to make the trek to the top of the temple, he refused to go quietly and attempted to break away from his captors. But the rope that was bound to his neck yanked him back and against the stone stairs. One of the warriors spat at him in his language before yanking him back to his feet by his hair.

Barbossa snarled at them as they forced him up the stairs and no matter how hard he tried to struggle out of their grasp, they held on to him with a strength equal to ten men. When they finally reached the top, all four of them were breathing heavy from his fight to get away. The ornately dressed natives glanced in their direction and upon seeing the next prisoner to be sacrificed; they stepped aside and allowed the four gods he had seen in the cavern to step forward. The one that had been doing the ritual submitted his serrated, obsidian dagger to jaguar-clad god.

Barbossa stared at them in fear, his wild eyes flickering between them, the dagger and the bloodied stone slab. With a nod from the deity, the warriors started to drag him toward the slab and Barbossa attempted one last bid for freedom by biting the arm of one of his captors. The man howled both in pain and surprise and Barbossa took the opportunity of his loose grip to break free and make a run for it. He never made it more than a few steps before a large, black jaguar wearing a feathered necklace around its neck pounced him upon. It snarled in his face as its claws dug into his shoulders and the pirate tried not to scream in pain even as it retracted those claws and allowed the warriors to grab him again.

He saw where the jaguar had come from, for as soon as he was secured on the stone slab, it melted into the human deity that wore the jaguar skin. Barbossa pulled at the straps that held him down, frantic to get away but stopped upon hearing the familiar and soothing voice of the voodoo priestess.

"Tia Dalma... ye have to put an end to this!" he begged, straining against the leather straps.

"Dem will not let ye go, my sweet," she whispered in his ear. "Not until dey blood be repaid fer yer greed." He looked at her pleadingly, silently asking for her help.

"What greed? Calypso... I've already repaid that blood! Tell them! Tell them I've already paid for it!" She shook her dreadlocked head at him in pity as the fear of dying again broke his resolve down until he was nothing more than another mortal begging a goddess for mercy. "Ten years I suffered fer me lust! Ten years I waited to repay them with me blood an' the blood of me crew! I repaid them! Tell them!"

"Dat not be dey crime ye must pay fer, Hecta Barbossa," she answered him and leaned over his restrained body to stare at him in the face. He felt her lips lightly pressed against his own for a brief moment before the voodoo witch pulled away and allowed the other gods to continue with his blood sacrifice.

"Calypso!" he cried out to her, no longer able to see where she stood for she had walked out of his line of vision and the jaguar god blocked any further attempts to find her familiar form.

"Brought before us to be sacrificed is a mortal who would dare take more than what has been promised to him!" the deity spoke in a deep and booming voice that startled him out of his skin. "Hector Barbossa, a mortal with great pride in both his skill with a weapon and his intellectual wit had believed he could master our kind." Below them the crowd roared in anger at the words of the deity and Barbossa was merely confused at what was being said.

_I've done no such thing!_ He silently screamed at the god.

"No?" The creature looked down upon the pirate; having heard his thoughts. "Were you not promised with the breath of life? Were you not promised your freedom and mastery of your own fate? And did you not try to take more than what you were promised?"

"I... how the bloody blazes do ye know about that?" The jaguar deity looked down upon him as if the answer was obvious. He returned his gaze back to the crowd below them and continued to speak the wrongdoing and faults of the captive Pirate Lord.

"He shall be sacrificed in payment for his disproportionate crime. His blood shall flow down the steps of Tenochtitlan as deemed by Tezcatlipoca!" Barbossa closed his eyes in anticipation of the coming pain he knew he would be experiencing. After a few seconds, none came and all he knew and heard was the roar of the crowd below. He opened his eyes again and saw that the bloodied skeleton replaced the jaguar deity and the pirate shuddered at the gruesome sight and at the memory that it reminded him of.

"The greed that which he had been punished for and suffered ten years for had not been enough to teach him wisdom and caution in dealing with our kind. His soul shall wander the shores of Mictlan until he has learned the lessons that which he had failed to learn while living. So says Mictlantecuhtli!"

"Nay!" Barbossa shouted. "I have learned me lesson! I swear to ye..." He would have said more but the twisted glare from the skeletal deity silenced him and he shrank back in fear. The third deity, the one who wore human skin as clothing stepped up to the slab and held the blood-soaked obsidian dagger in his golden hand.

"He wears a deceptive guise to hide his true nature and intentions from others in hopes to take more than his fair share and care not for what happens to those he hurts. Let us remove that guise from his flesh and reveal his true self as deemed by Xipe Totec!" The crowd below fellow silent at the deity's words and they watched the creature look down upon his sacrificial lamb. Barbossa swallowed; his mouth and throat were dry and he squeezed his eyes shut as the deity placed the knife against his throat.

If he had thought ten years of being unable to feel anything was the most horrible fate he could ever endure, worse than Hell itself, worse than hanging at the gallows unable to die, and worse than being burned alive by a bunch of peasants on a moon-filled night that was suppose to be cloudy; than what was happening to him now made all those experiences and the curse itself pale in comparison.

He would rather have lived an eternity under the curse of Cortez than be skinned alive.

Barbossa howled at the searing pain of feeling his own skin being slowly pulled from his flesh. If he had ever wondered how an animal might have felt like while it's pelt was being peeled away, he now knew. Except he also knew that animals were normally dead when they were skinned. He, however, was not. He wished he was and pleaded for Calypso to put an end to it. He begged and he cried, screaming himself hoarse and to the point where it was difficult to breathe. He made all sorts of promises in his head when the deity paused long enough for him to clearly think.

He faded in and out of consciousness as the skin-covered god worked on his body, all sense of feeling had left him minutes ago and Barbossa found it to be a relief. The last time he was conscious, the god had finished with him and had replaced the skin he wore with the freshly flayed one so that now Barbossa stared at a distorted version of himself. He was about to pass out for the last time when the last and final deity stepped forward, brandishing the obsidian dagger. This deity did not speak and went straight into completing the sacrifice, removing his beating heart from his body.

To Barbossa the organ seemed to weakly beat out his life as the god raised it above over his head; "He was promised mastery of his fate and so his fate has been sealed for his lust for more! So says Camaxtli!" The crowd once more roared below them as the deity took his heart and placed it upon burning coals. The world around Barbossa spun as the Aztec priests un-strapped him from the slab and tossed him over onto the bloodied steps of the great pyramid.

He came down upon the bottom with a wet splash and it took him several seconds to realize that he had fallen into a pool of dark water. And for just as long he wanted to just stay there and let himself drown, afraid to surface for fear of having to endure more of the Aztec's brutal methods of torture and execution. But instinct drove him to surface once his lungs began to burn for the fresh air. When his head emerged from the water he coughed and sputtered and tried to regain his whereabouts.

The first thing he noticed after taking several lungfuls of air was the lighting and temperature. It was no longer bright with sunlight and everything was cold and damp as the cavern he had become so familiar with over the last ten years of his life. As he looked around and settled his feet on the pool's bottom, he realized he was in fact back in that very same cavern on Isle de Muerta. The pale streams of moonlight coming through the openings above only lighted the cavern and as he moved into one while climbing out of the water he noticed that his hands had turned into those of a rotting skeleton.

Barbossa looked up at the openings in the ceiling and he could barely make out the pale orb of a full moon glaring down at him. He glowered at the offending body before glaring down at his own deformed hands. Sighing at being cursed once more he looked around at the cavern and noticed that it was empty of everything but the stone chest of Cortez. He furrowed his brow at the lack of shiny gold piles and wondered where it had all gone. As he thought about it and walked around the cavern, he noticed that the place looked almost exactly as it had ten years ago when he and his crew had first come upon it.

The pirate captain approached the stone chest and pushed the lid off with his booted foot, something else he had also noticed was that his cloths had been returned to him, and stared down at an empty chest. Every gold piece was missing save for one and he reached down to pick it up, along with the bone dagger. "Ten years it took me to gather all 882 pieces of gold an' when I open ye again yer all gone save for one. Just like last time. Am I dead? Is this to be me punishment in Hell? To try an' collect every gold piece again an' have every man that took from it pay their blood in sacrifice?"

"You will not collect a single coin until you have learned each of their lessons, only then will your soul be free to rest in peace," a voice said from behind him and he spun around to face the grotesque visage of the Mictlantecuhtli, upon his shoulder sat a dog-monkey thing wearing Jack's cloths that sent shivers down the captain's spine. Barbossa's hand instinctively went for the sword that he always had at his side but found it was not there. _Not surprising._

"What curse be this?" he demanded and stepped forward out of the moonlight. As soon as he did he noticed that he still had his skin and immediately felt his entire body until he was certain that he had everything and there were no foreign cuts or scars brought on by the gruesome sacrifice this god and the others had made him endure. He was confused as to what had happened. The last thing he remembered before finding himself in a pool of water was that he had just been skinned alive and his heart removed from his body.

Yet here he was whole once more.

"A curse that you have brought upon yourself by crossing a goddess. You are in Mictlan and you will remain here until you have completed your task."

"Him have 'nother task tae complete an' him will do wha' him promised," the sing-song voice of Tia Dalma echoed through the cavern and both men, mortal and deity turned to face the voodoo priestess. She stood next to the stone chest and slowly made her way down the stone mound that it sat upon. "Him also been promised him life an' mastery of him own fate upon completion o' said task. Him be mine, ol' god o' dey Underworld. Him have learna him lesson, Mictlan. Ye an' yer brethren have done yer part, now be gone."

"I will give him back to you, but should he fail to slake his greed upon completion of his task, he will be sent to Mictlan as deemed by the Nahuatl Gods who sacrificed his soul."

"I swear it that I will!" Barbossa snarled in defiance and the deity merely looked at him with doubt. He got the impression that the under lord expected to see him again and that only emboldened the pirate to triumph over his challenge. The deity turned away and disappeared into the shadows of the cavern, leaving the captain alone with Tia Dalma. He turned to her questioningly, almost accusingly for what she had done to him.

"Ye brought it upon yerself, Hecta Barbossa," she said and took a step closer to him until they were only a couple feet apart. "Ye should not have tried tae use me fer gain."

"Is that what this is all about? To punish me fer bein' a pirate?" he growled and closed the distance between them. He grabbed her by the arms and held her firmly in place. The voodoo witch looked up at him with a motherly look before placing a tender hand on his cheek, lightly brushing his face with her fingers. "Or be this a dream like it feels?"

"Aye," she replied and brushed her lips against his. "Ye can wake up now, my sweet."

* * *

Hector Barbossa woke up with a start and banged his head up against the bottom of his bed. As he rubbed the sore bruise forming against his brow, he wondered how he ended up on the floor of his cabin and took note the state of disarray he and his bed were in. He discovered that he was drenched in sweat and his bedcovers were tangled all around his body and legs, no doubt from the nightmare induced struggles he had endured while trying to escape a dream he was unable to flee from by just waking up. Thinking about the nightmare sent his hands and eyes on their own volition to explore his body for anything out of place.

With a sigh of relief he took note of a couple cuts and bruises he suffered while thrashing about in his bed but otherwise gave himself a clean bill of health. He pulled himself to his feet and peeled the bedcovers away from his body before tossing them back onto the bed in a rumpled heap. In need of a strong drink after that nightmare, he made his way over to his stash of liquor and pulled out a fine bottle of rum that he had acquired earlier after the Brethren Court had adjourned. Without bothering to get himself a mug, he pulled the cork off the bottle and drank straight from it much like he'd seen Jack do whenever the man wanted to drown something away.

The liquid burned down his throat and spread warmth throughout his entire body, but could not quite distract him from the images of the dream and the wonder whether it was a dream or not. He stared at the bottle of rum as he thought about it before coming to the conclusion that there was no way it could have been real despite how much it felt to be. He also believed that it was just nothing more than a dream brought on by what Calypso had reminded him of what he had been before she brought him back. She was still bound in human form and her powers were far too limited for her to do anything more than parlor tricks and insight.

Or was it?

He had to find out and so with a haste born from a man who believed Hell to be chasing him, he gathered his cloths and put them on before making his way down to the brig where he had Calypso imprisoned until her release. Before his boots made the last steps down into the lower levels of his ship, his presence seemed to have been expected.

"Come tae release me or have ye trouble sleepin', Hecta Barbossa?" she said to him.

"I came to check on ye," he answered, a little disturbed by her words. "Wanted to make sure ye still were aboard an' not run off. But seein' that ye are, I'll be makin' me way back topside." He turned to walk away.

"It were no dream, my sweet Captain," she said after him and her laughter followed him as picked up his pace to leave her presence as quickly as possible.

The End

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**A/N: I hope you enjoyed it and I also hope you do not flay me for doing this to poor Hector. I'm already being punished enough by him, he refuses to speak to me now. sniff **


End file.
